Saturday, April 02, 2011

Spring is struggling in

kw: travel notes

We spent most of the day to visit our son, a 1½-hour drive away, where he attends Rutgers. On the way back, I found myself observing the changes NJ Hwy 1 goes through between New Brunswick and Trenton. Though New Brunswick is not a really large city, where Hwy 1 passes through it there is the distinct big-city feel of heavy traffic in lots of lanes. There are shopping centers and malls down both sides of the road for several miles until you approach Finnegan's Lane opposite Franklin Park. Then the built-up area recedes and trees line both sides, and there is one lane less (two each way), though the median is still marked with paired concrete walls.

This lends the highway more of a "rural connector" feel, which it retains until one approaches Princeton Junction, a few miles north of the I-95/295 intersection where we pick up Hwy 295. We stay on this until the cutoff to the Barry bridge into PA, and after a couple miles on 95, it's local roads the rest of the way home. Ah, suburbia! Gets my blood pressure back to normal.